The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren Book Review

May 8, 2023May 14, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script—from the New York Times bestselling authors of The Soulmate Equation and The Unhoneymooners.

Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.

Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?

Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.

The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in the New York Times bestselling The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.

Triggers

Here is some of the sensitive content that I observed while reading this book:

Alcohol
Cheating (not between MCs)
Divorce (not MCs)
Pregnancy/Childbirth (Not MCs)
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes

Ratings

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Folk Around and Find Out by Penny Reid Book Review

February 26, 2023April 20, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

He needs to get her out of his system. Just once…

Hank Weller doesn’t help people. He leaves that do-gooder nonsense to his best friend, Beau Winston. Hank does what he wants, when he wants, with whomever he wants—and Hank does not want to hire Charlotte Mitchell to be an exotic dancer at his club, The Pink Pony. Sure, he can’t help noticing the dips and curves of her, how shrewd, smart, and funny she is, the fire in her hazel eyes. He’s always noticed. She’d probably draw a crowd and entice the regulars. But after Charlotte’s messy, public divorce made Hank’s club out to be the culprit—and made her the single mother of four kids—he doesn’t need or want any additional bad press courtesy of Charlotte Mitchell. Or the distraction. Unfortunately for him, the town’s prettiest charity case doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the words nope, no, and never.

Charlotte Mitchell doesn’t much like Hank Weller. Once upon a time, she used to. Years ago, she liked him a whole heckofalot despite other folks in town labeling him as “eccentric” and “nonconformist,” which were polite southern alternatives to “filthy rich” and “self-centered douchebag.” Her opinion of him changed dramatically after he volunteered to be her date to junior prom and then promptly stood her up. They haven’t so much as acknowledged each other in over a decade. But a sudden family emergency means Charlotte needs access to Hank’s club ASAP. Unfortunately for her, the narcissistic fancy-pants doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the words help, generosity, and compassion.

But he’s about to find himself schooled. Charlotte is going to teach Hank a lesson once and for all about basic human decency, whether he likes it or not.

Spoiler alert. . . he likes it.

Triggers

Penny Rid doesn’t include any sensitive content warnings for this book. Her are some of the potentially sensitive content I observed while reading:

Alcohol
Cheating (not MCs)
Divorce
Harry Potter References (alluded not specific)
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes

Ratings

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Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren Book Review

February 20, 2023April 13, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

The story of the heart can never be unwritten.

Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.

But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother…only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.

Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.

Triggers

There aren’t any trigger warnings for this book. Here is some of the potentially sensitive content that I observed while reading:

Alcohol
Anxiety
Car accident
Death of a parent
Grief
Profanity
Rape (mentions of)
Sexual content

Ratings

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Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers Book Review

February 17, 2023April 5, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

When becoming an adult means learning to love yourself first.

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her parent’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she’s able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

Triggers

There is no content warning for this book. Here is some the of sensitive content that I observed while reading.:

Alcohol
Anxiety
Depression
Homophobia (mentions of)
Misogyny
Profanity
Racism
Self-Harm

Ratings

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Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score Book Review

January 31, 2023March 7, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

Bearded, bad-boy barber Knox prefers to live his life the way he takes his coffee: Alone. Unless you count his basset hound, Waylon.

Knox doesn’t tolerate drama, even when it comes in the form of a stranded runaway bride.

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding. She was riding to the rescue of her estranged twin to Knockemout, Virginia, a rough-around-the-edges town where disputes are settled the old-fashioned way…with fists and beer. Usually in that order.

Too bad for Naomi her evil twin hasn’t changed at all. After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with something unexpected. The niece Naomi didn’t know she had. Now she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no plan, and no home with an 11-year-old going on thirty to take care of.

There’s a reason Knox doesn’t do complications or high-maintenance women, especially not the romantic ones. But since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least he can do is help her out of her jam. And just as soon as she stops getting into new trouble he can leave her alone and get back to his peaceful, solitary life.

At least, that’s the plan until the trouble turns to real danger.

Triggers

There are no sensitive content warnings from Lucy Score for this book. Here are some of the potentially sensitive content that I observed while reading:

Abusive Relationship (not between Main Characters)
Alcohol
Blood
Child Neglect (not by Main Characters)
Financial Anxiety
Kidnapping
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes
Violence

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

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The Bodyguard by Katherine Center Book Review

January 5, 2023January 30, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

She’s got his back.
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka “bodyguard”), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

He’s got her heart.
Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.

They’ve got a secret.
When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, like a jerk, says no one will believe it.

What could possibly go wrong???
Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done

Triggers

There were not trigger warning with this book so these are the potentially sensitive topics I observed:

Alcohol
Blood
Car Accident
Childhood Trauma/Abuse
Death of a Parent
Grief
Hostages
Needles
Profanity
Terminal Illness (not Main Characters)
Violence

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

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Lovelight Farms by B. K. Borison Book Review

January 2, 2023February 18, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

Where the lovelight gleams …

A pasture of dead trees. A hostile takeover of the Santa barn by a family of raccoons. And shipments that have mysteriously gone missing. Lovelight Farms is not the magical winter wonderland of Stella Bloom’s dreams.

In an effort to save the Christmas tree farm she’s loved since she was a kid, she enters a contest with instafamous influencer Evelyn St. James. With the added publicity and the $100,000 cash prize, she might just be able to save the farm from its financial woes. There’s just one problem. To make the farm seem like a romantic destination for the holidays, she lied on the application and said she owns Lovelight Farms with her boyfriend. Only … there is no boyfriend.

Enter best friend Luka Peters. He just came home for some hot chocolate, and somehow got a farm and a serious girlfriend in the process.

Lovelight Farms is a romantic comedy featuring a handsome, freckled data analyst, a messy, optimistic Christmas tree farm owner, and a small town with the best hazelnut lattes on the east coast. This sweet and steamy romance is a holiday happily ever after.

It is the first book in a series of interconnected standalones following the three Lovelight owners.

Triggers

These are the the potentially sensitive topics that are discussed in this book:

Alcohol
Anxiety
Cancer (not Main Characters)
Death of a parent (both Main Characters)
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

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Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey Book Review

January 1, 2023January 3, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

In the follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously fun rom-com about a former player who accidentally falls for his best friend while trying to help her land a different man…

King crab fisherman Fox Thornton has a reputation as a sexy, carefree flirt. Everyone knows he’s a guaranteed good time—in bed and out—and that’s exactly how he prefers it. Until he meets Hannah Bellinger. She’s immune to his charm and looks, but she seems to enjoy his… personality? And wants to be friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is.

Now, Hannah’s in town for work, crashing in Fox’s spare bedroom. She knows he’s a notorious ladies’ man, but they’re definitely just friends. In fact, she’s nursing a hopeless crush on a colleague and Fox is just the person to help with her lackluster love life. Armed with a few tips from Westport’s resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch her coworker’s eye… yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can’t deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost.

Living with his best friend should have been easy. Except now she’s walking around in a towel, sleeping right across the hall, and Fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of his life and… and… man overboard! He’s fallen for her, hook, line, and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can tackle his inner demons and show Hannah he’s all in, she’ll choose him instead?

Triggers

This book is rather light but there are some subjects that may be considered sensitive to some.

Alcohol
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes
Slut-shaming / Toxic Masculinity

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

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Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun Book Review

December 25, 2022January 5, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

The author of the “swoon-worthy debut” (Harper’s Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord…only to fall for his sister.

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

Perfect for fans of Written in the Stars and One Day in December, Kiss Her Once for Me is the queer holiday rom-com that you’ll want to cozy up with next to the fire.

Triggers

Here are the potentially sensitive content that I observed while reading:

Anxiety (Social Anxiety)
Alcohol
Childhood Trauma
Hypothermia
Profanity
Sexually Explicit Scenes

Ratings

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There are possible **SPOILERS** beyond this point!

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Drama King by Penny Reid Book Review

December 18, 2022April 5, 2023 by zajikalimakes ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the Disclosure here.

Blurb

Stuck with her off-limits, taciturn, hunky movie star client during a sudden snowstorm on Christmas Eve, an extremely capable and highly professional bodyguard must keep him alive and warm without letting the tension building between them get too hot.

Bathsheba (Beth) Ryan can’t thank her best friend enough for helping her land the job of her dreams. After being relegated to second-string security for politicians in DC, being hired as an undercover personal security specialist by a giant Hollywood studio is exactly the kind of action she’s always wanted.

Until she meets her first assignment.

Cyrus Malcom can’t thank his agent enough for arranging a blind date with seemingly the woman of his dreams. After spending the past several years playing all the parts and climbing all the ladders, the lonely mega movie star finds himself actually enjoying a night on the town for the first time in ages when he meets the gorgeous, funny, and genuine Ryaine O’Rourke.

Until she shows up at his studio meeting the next day with a completely different name.

A world-wide press tour and too many late-night parties later, Beth simply needs to get through a short, one-day visit during the Christmas holiday, and then she’ll be free of Cyrus Malcom’s confusing hot looks and cold shoulders for good.

But just as they leave the airport, it starts to snow . . .

‘Drama King’ is the second book in the Three Kings Series, is a full-length, contemporary romantic comedy, and can be read as a complete standalone.

Triggers

Penny Reid does give a potential trigger warning list at the beginning of this book. I’ve included what she specifies plus any that I observed while reading: